This tutorial is on settled status and three examples of EU nationals applying for settled status under the scheme.
It’s likely that you’ll fall within one of these three scenarios. This video is part of a series on settled status for EU nationals living in the UK.
Let’s have a look at the first example.
This is a Spanish national who has spent five years in the UK.
It’s important that you have five years continuous residence before applying for settled status, but if you don’t have five years, you’ll be able to apply for pre-settled status and then you’ll be able to stay on until you have five years under your belt, as it were, for settled status.
In this example, this Spanish national has spent five years in the UK pre-Brexit. Exit day is on the 29th of March, 2019. In his case, his options now are that he can apply for permanent residence or for a registration certificate. In his case, he doesn’t need a registration certificate.
He can go straight for permanent residence. He can apply for permanent residence now before applying for settled status. Now, the closer we get to Brexit, the less reason one has to apply for a permanent residence certificate, as well as applying for settled status.
That’s, the government’s line is that you do not need to apply for permanent residence now. You can wait and apply for settled status when the application route opens, but nevertheless, one can apply.
The benefit of applying is that once one has a document certifying the right to permanent residence, I’ll show you an example here, one can then go on to swap that out for settled status. The settled status, it appears, isn’t going to be in a documentary format, it’s going to be in a letter, though, that’s confirmed, and the application process is going to be online.
In this person’s case, he can either apply for permanent residence now and exchange that status for settled status without having to apply for settled status when the application route opens, or he can wait, he can do nothing, and apply for settled status once that route opens. He will not need to apply for settled status until the 30th of June, 2021, so that’s some way off.
However, there will be another benefit to him applying early for settled status. That’s that about 3,000,000 people are going to be applying, over 3,000,000 people, so over 3,000,000 people living, EU nationals living in the UK, will need to apply for settled status. This being one of them, he can either apply at the beginning of the process or at the end.
My fear is that, as we’ve said in other tutorials, there’s going to be delay in the system, and that the electronic system may not operate efficiently, it’s quite possible. In any case, there’ll be a benefit to applying early. He only needs to do something by the 30th of June, 2021, but there’s a couple of things he’s got to be careful of.
The transition period to the 31st of December, 2020, is always going to be important for EU nationals living in the UK now. You’ve got to show that you’re resident in the UK on that date.
In this case, if he leaves the UK between now and the end of the transition period, he may break the continuity of his stay for the purposes of settled status. I’ll show you what I mean.
You can see from this diagram that the absence requirement for settled status is basically half of the year, 180 days.
You can’t exceed that without resetting the clock for the purposes of settled status. There’s one exception, which is the one year. If you leave the UK for one year for a good reason, like work or study, then that won’t break continuity of stay for the purposes of calculating continuous residence and the five years residence.
If you do interrupt it, it’s not necessarily a problem as long as you make sure that you are resident again in the UK by the 31st of December, 2020. In this case, if he breaks the continuity of leave by staying out of the UK for more than a year before that time, he’ll need to make sure that he’s back in the UK and he’ll be able to then apply for pre-settled status.
He’s got to be back in the UK by the 31st of December, 2020, and he’s got to make his application by the 30th of June, 2021.
Let’s look at a new example. This German national is going to have five years residence just before 2020, so just before the end of 2020, so in late 2020 she will have accrued five years residence.
This means she’ll need to apply, need to make an application along with all of the other EU nationals in the UK. She’ll need to make that application by the 30th of June, 2021. Importantly, if she makes no application, and this goes for the other examples, if she’s still in the UK on the first of July, 2021, she’ll be in the UK unlawfully.
That’s a crucial message here, is you’ve got to make an application. If you don’t do so, then you could find yourself a, quote, over-stayer.
Let’s look at the next example. This is a French national who will only arrive in the UK just before the end of 2020.
She will have five years residence up to 2025. In this case, she will need to apply for pre-settled status by the 30th of June, 2021. If she’s in the UK on the first of July, 2021, without having made an application, then she’ll be in the UK unlawfully.
But if she makes an application for pre-settled status and that is granted, she’ll get an additional five years and will then be able to accrue a total of five years, at which point she’ll be able to apply for settled status.
